Lullaby
by MetalWarrior22
Summary: Fear plagues Korra's dreams and she always ends up waking up terrified. Asami is by her side but she can only watch her, unable to do anything about it. But maybe she isn't totally helpless in this situation.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Happy birthday Kyou-chan! I hope you like this little gift :D

* * *

" _Zaheer! No!"_

" _You can't fight_ me _and the poison."_

" _No, they got it out."_

" _You'll never get it out! The Red Lotus has won. An era of true freedom is about to begin."_

I scream at the top of my lungs. It burns. Everything seems dark and I try to stand up but my legs are not responding. I notice that someone is holding my shoulders and I want to bend but pain courses through my body as soon as I try to spark a flame.

"Korra, everything's ok, it was just a dream. You are with me, you are safe."

I stop trying to fight when I hear that voice. I look at the person holding me firmly albeit gently and I see green eyes staring down at me. Slowly I look at my surroundings, realizing I'm in my room on Air Temple Island. I relax a bit but the heavy pounding in my chest will not stop. "Did I-" I'm unable to even finish the sentence.

Her soft hands release me from their grip and she reaches for a pitcher on the bedside table, pouring water in a glass for me. She puts the pitcher back and then helps me by raising my head with one hand and putting the glass against my lips with the other one… I am so weak. I drink just enough water to be able to speak because even drinking it is tiring for me.

"Did I wake you up?" My voice sounds coarse, but my throat doesn't hurt much now.

"Actually I was awake when you started thrashing on your bed." She puts the glass back on the bedside table, her eyes never leaving me. "Do you want to talk about your dream?"

I just stare at nothing, not knowing if I want to, if I need to talk. Everything seems pointless. Zaheer broke me and talking about it won't change anything, won't put me back together. Just thinking of him makes me feel powerless… and scared.

"You should try to get back to sleep. You need to rest. I am right here if you need anything." She stands up from my bed and goes back to hers, just beside mine. She's been sleeping in my room, even when I told her that it was unnecessary, but she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. I hate being a burden to her, to everyone.

I am always tired, and not only physically. Now everyone sees me broken and I feel that I'm no longer the Avatar. I'm just a burden, an annoyance. Everyone pities me when they see me… except Asami. She's looks at me concerned, worried, but there's never pity in her eyes. I've been thinking about that a lot, but when one is stuck in a wheelchair unable to do nothing, thinking is the only choice left.

I became really close to Asami in the past few weeks while searching for airbenders, and I think it is the same for her. I feel guilty for that. Now she looks after broken me and she can't go on with her life… Maybe if I wasn't around here she'd be able to move on…

I close my eyes, trying to sleep but knowing that even if I manage to do so, I will probably not get enough rest. But as soon as I start to drift off, I see the caves I was trapped in. My body goes tense and I open my eyes. I know that I'm in my room, but nonetheless I look at the shadows searching for something… someone that is not here. It takes me some time to relax a bit, minutes that feel like hours, but in the end I calm down enough to try to sleep again. I close my eyes and focus on the sounds of the night, especially the waves that graze the island. I fall in a light slumber and I can still hear the waves, but suddenly everything changes. I'm facing Zaheer again and he is bending the air from my lungs out. I gasp loudly and I raise an arm to defend myself from the maniac that isn't here. I breathe heavily and my heart is racing. I don't think I'll get much sleep tonight.

I hear footsteps and I'm too scared to realize they are from Asami, but the sound of her voice prevents me from panicking even more.

"It's just me, Korra." Asami sits on my bed and caresses my cheek gently. "This has been a bad night for you. Would you like me to tell you a bedtime story? I know we are too old for that but…" I shake my head before she finishes talking.

Asami remains silent for a while, a hesitant look on her face, but then she stares at my bed as if it is the most interesting thing in the world, frowning lightly as she always does when she concentrates fully on an idea. She stops frowning and then looks at me. "I could sleep with you." I raise my eyebrows a little, surprised by her suggestion. "When I was a child and I had a nightmare, my mom always let me sleep with her. It helped me to take my mind off bad things. Would you like to try?"

I would like to argue with her, that she doesn't need to do this, that I'll be fine. But I know that I'd be lying. Besides, I hardly see any… inconvenience in sleeping with her, so I just nod. I manage to scoot over to one side of the bed with Asami's help and she lies down next to me. Unexpectedly, she embraces me with one arm, pushing me close so I'm partially on top of her, with my head resting on her chest. With her free hand she makes soothing movements on my back. I'm a little bewildered by the whole gesture, but I welcome it all the same.

I try to pay attention just to Asami. Her breathing, her beating heart, her hands caressing my back… the slight smell of engine oil mixed with hints of a flowery scent coming from her. She helps me relax a bit, but I'm still too worked up and I don't dare close my eyes. I am debating over closing them or just lie there and wait for the fatigue to take over me. However, in the middle of my struggle, I feel Asami humming a song. Then, I hear her sing in a soft voice.

"Sleep my baby on my bosom  
Warm and cozy will it prove  
Round your mother's arms are folding  
In her heart a mother's love

There shall no one come to harm you  
Naught shall ever break your rest  
Sleep my darling babe in quiet  
Sleep on mother's gentle breast."

I get out of my stupor and finally raise my head to look at Asami, she has her eyes closed, but stops singing to look at me. Her eyes are watery and she only shows me a warm smile before closing her eyes again, picking up the song from where she left. I am too amused to say anything and I just lower down my head on her chest again, hearing her singing for me.

"Sleep serenely, baby, slumber  
Lovely baby, gently sleep;  
Tell me wherefore are you smiling  
Smiling sweetly in your sleep?

Do the spirits smile in heaven  
When your happy smile they see?  
Do you on them smile while slumb'ring  
On my bosom peacefully."

For the first time in days I stop thinking about my misery. It's as if Asami is the only thing that exists right now: her warmth, her heartbeat, her voice. There's no more fear, no more Zaheer, not even pain. Asami's song is so soothing that I actually close my eyes to focus on it, forgetting all my problems, even if it's just for a moment. There's something in her voice, in each word she sings… I can't quite place it, but it's something that helps me to finally relax.

"Do not fear the sound of a breeze  
Brushing leaves against the door.  
Do not dread the murmuring seas,  
Lonely waves washing the shore.

Sleep child mine, there's nothing here,  
While in slumber at my breast,  
Spirits smiling, have no fear,  
Holy spirits guard your rest."

I start to drift off, for real this time, and I keep listening to Asami's voice, but I don't know if she is still singing or if her song is stuck in my head. Either way, I'm fine with it. Still, I keep thinking that there is something tinging her voice, but before I can figure out what it is, I finally fall asleep.

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, I get a resting dreamless night.


	2. Chapter 2

I wake up at Korra thrashing on the bed. I realize she is having a nightmare, one of the bad ones, so I'm about to wake her up when she stifles a scream and sits up on the bed, panting and sweating, looking frantically around the room for the man that hurt her long ago.

"Everything's alright, Korra. You are with me, you are home." I say as I sit up and place a hand on her shoulder. She doesn't look at me but places her hand on my own while she tries to regulate her breathing, closing her eyes. Minutes pass and I wait patiently for her to calm down.

"Thank you, Asami." She says at last, not opening her eyes yet.

I squeeze her shoulder. "Do you want to talk about your nightmare?"

"I… Yes, but I need to drink water first, my throat is dry."

"I'll go get you some."

"No, you don't have to." She gets up from the bed and smiles at me, though she does it without meaning it, just to give me some reassurance. She leaves the room and goes downstairs to the kitchen.

These are the only things that still haunt Korra; her nightmares. She seldom has them now, and when she does they are just a reminder of what happened to her, easy to shake it off; she has learned to live with them. But there are times when Korra's mind brings those painful memories back in full force and she experiences everything again, like tonight. I wish I could take all their traumatic memories away, but I can't.

Korra enters the room dragging her feet and lies down next to me.

"Still want to talk about it?" I say as I lie down too.

"This dream was kinda worse than previous ones. Zaheer was attacking me but I wasn't able to defend myself, I was paralyzed from the waist down and I was alone, there was no one in that place except for the two of us." She is looking at my chest, tears about to fall from her eyes. "Did you know that sometimes I realize it is a dream if you are in it?" She looks at me and I just shake my head. "Yeah, sometimes I am reliving those moments, my fight with Zaheer, although some details change from time to time. But then amidst the chaos I spot you. You are not very far from me and you aren't worried… you actually have this look, as if you know that everything will be okay. That's when I remember that I fought and defeated Zaheer and all my panic disappears. But this time I was alone and powerless… Having to go through that but a hundred times worse, it was too much Asami." Tears finally start to run down her face.

I hold her tightly as she sobs the memories away. "It's ok, Korra. You are safe, you are safe. He is not going to harm you ever again." It breaks my heart to see Korra like this, she didn't deserve what happened to her, but we have learned to live with everything we have been through. After a while her sobs become more and more sporadic, until she finally stops crying, though she is still awake. I can feel that her body is still a little tense.

After her nightmares, Korra doesn't like to stay awake for long. She says that she wants to face her fears even if it means dreaming about them over and over again, she hasn't had more than one nightmare a night since she was wheelchair-bound though. On top of that, asides from the dreams, Korra prefers to sleep than to stay awake and let her anxiety mess up with her mind. Seeing that she is not going to fall asleep soon, I inhale deeply once to do what I know will soothe her.

"Can you sing for me, Asami?" Korra's muffled voice is barely audible.

"Of course, love. Actually I was going to sing when you asked me to do it."

She disentangles from my embrace to look at my face, her eyes still puffy and red. "But first, I always wanted to ask you something." She collects her thoughts and then continues. "When I'm too worked up after a nightmare, you always sing. Why did you start singing for me? How did you know that it was going to help me?"

"Well, do you remember that I was awake the first night I sang to you?" She nods. "I was winding down from a nightmare of my own."

"Oh Asami, I'm so sorry. I-"

"Shush. You didn't know and it's not as if it was your fault."

A heartbeat later, Korra agrees with me. "You are right." She gives me a tired smile.

"I was dreaming of when my mom died." I don't have to say anything more, I've talked with Korra thoroughly about that time and the nightmares I sometimes get from it. "When you needed comfort after your first _really_ stressing nightmare, I recalled something from the night my mother was killed. I remembered that I was scared of something and I was refusing to go to sleep because of it… it must have been something silly. So my mom did what she used to do when I was scared; she sang this lullaby to me, and it always helped me to sleep."

Korra's expression hasn't changed much, but I can tell she's a little surprised. "You've been singing your mom's lullaby?"

"It was not hers. It is not a popular one, but it's a song from the Earth Kingdom. It was my favorite and it was my mom's too. Because of that, after my mom's death, it always hurt me a little bit singing it to me. But that night, when you were refusing to sleep, I just thought that it would be a good idea singing it to you. The memory of my mom was still fresh in my mind and truthfully, it is the last happy memory I have of her. Her singing was always so soothing that I wanted to do the same for you."

"Thank you, Asami. It must have been hard for you." Korra's eyes are watery again.

"Not at all. For the first time in years it didn't hurt to sing my mom's lullaby, and it hasn't hurt ever since." I place my hand on Korra's cheek and she leans into the touch, sighing with her eyes closed while a tear rolls down her face. "I have realized that the lullaby helps me as much as it helps you. It is a reminder of what my mother felt for me and what I feel for you."

"You are quite amazing, do you know that?" Korra is crying again, but this time the tears are not caused by emotional pain.

"I don't know, you are quite amazing too." I kiss her on the cheek and that's when I realize that I'm crying too. "Do you want me to sing for you now?"

"Always." Korra rests on top of myself and holds me tightly. I embrace her and start humming my mom's lullaby.


	3. Chapter 3

My last nightmare was a bad one, I don't know if it was the worst, but it must be pretty close. I usually end up venting my sorrows to Asami after a nightmare, but this night came with a surprise. I've been living with Asami for a few years now and she still amazes me each and every day. I wish we could be together forever, so I may have to hurry up and finish crafting her ring to make it happen. Just thinking of it makes my heart jump.

"Sleep my baby on my bosom  
Warm and cozy will it prove  
Round your mother's arms are folding  
In her heart a mother's love

There shall no one come to harm you  
Naught shall ever break your rest  
Sleep my darling babe in quiet  
Sleep on mother's gentle breast."

Since Asami sang to me that first time, I've always liked placing my head on top of her chest. Sometimes, after a nightmare, I feel that I'm going to fall apart, that I'm going to be broken again. This fear is unfounded, but still… When I feel Asami humming the lullaby before actually singing it, when I hear her heartbeat… Both of these things wash my fears away and bring me peace.

"Sleep serenely, baby, slumber  
Lovely baby, gently sleep;  
Tell me wherefore are you smiling  
Smiling sweetly in your sleep?

Do the spirits smile in heaven  
When your happy smile they see?  
Do you on them smile while slumb'ring  
On my bosom peacefully."

Asami has talked about her mother before, but I have never asked her too many things, afraid to overstep some kind of line, but now I see that I need to ask her, to keep her mother alive in her memory. Though hearing Asami singing, I realize that her mother was a very strong woman, stronger than I first thought. And Asami is just like her. With her singing she's keeping my fears away, and just now I realize what her voice carries with each word she sings. I feel a little dumb for not becoming aware of it earlier.

"Do not fear the sound of a breeze  
Brushing leaves against the door.  
Do not dread the murmuring seas,  
Lonely waves washing the shore.

Sleep child mine, there's nothing here,  
While in slumber at my breast,  
Spirits smiling, have no fear,  
Holy spirits guard your rest."

It's funny that while I'm falling asleep, my heart is jumping from joy. And there's a stupid smile on my face I can't get rid of. I'm so silly, what I've been hearing in Asami's voice every time she sings is _love_.

* * *

 **A/N:** The song is a real one called "Sleep my baby", adapted —not by me— from a Welsh lullaby called "Suo Gân". I made minor adjustments to remove the archaic use of English and also replaced "angels" by "spirits". The only word I couldn't change was "heaven", which doesn't have an equivalent in the Avatar-verse. Thank you for reading.


End file.
